Easy robot programming concepts: An industrial perspective

One of the key challenges for industrial robotics is the high level of expertise and effort required to program a robust, production-quality robot system. In most cases, a highly trained specialist is required to setup a system, which drives up the installation costs. Standard text-based methods for programming robots oftentimes result in programs that are difficult to maintain due to their complex program structure and editing methods. This is a major issue in today's manufacturing environment where product changeover is often measured in months. This paper identifies some of the major difficulties in creating robot programs, distinguishing between creating and maintaining the logical program structure and creating robot paths. Next it describes several recent attempts to simplify industrial robot programming, focusing on those two aspects. This paper then analyzes the applicability, strengths and weakness of various approaches assessing them in light of novice, intermediate and advanced users. Lastly, some recommendations are given for further development in this area of simplifying industrial robot programming.